Andrea - Albany

Hillary's race was ground-breaking but it reinforced for me that America has a long way to go before we reach the ideal of true equality.

Hillary is a smart and very accomplished woman yet she was continually bombarded with comments about her personal business and how she "feels" and in fact, the instances which seemed to garner the most press and public support were those in which she was reported to have shown her "soft" side. As the first and only woman bankruptcy trustee in my district more than 15 years, I know that while we are accepted in many of the same roles, our worth is still discounted because we are first and foremost seen as more emotional (and there fore less able to withstand the rigors of a demanding role) because we are first and foremost a mother or potential mother by our contemporaries.

Over the last 40 years, women have been seen as successful if they could "do it all" (family and career), and even Hillary (and I) are part of that generation. That must and will change. Hillary's race showed the next generation of women that women, just like men, follow their dreams and be who they want to be, first and foremost.

It was a great race at the right time - because this generation was already moving in that direction but they needed Hillary to be the embodiment of that ideal.